Papers by Frederick Amrine
Boydell and Brewer eBooks, Dec 31, 2024
Boydell and Brewer eBooks, Dec 31, 2016
Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 1987
As described in the Introduction, the following is a highly reworked version of a Round Table hel... more As described in the Introduction, the following is a highly reworked version of a Round Table held at a Harvard conference on Goethe and the Sciences in December, 1982. Many contributions have been highly condensed or only summarized, but it was possible to include all of the major points raised in response to the crucial question asked in the title.
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, May 18, 2015
Elemente der Naturwissenschaft, Dec 1, 2017
According to 20 th century philosophy of science, the interplay of intelligibility, discovery and... more According to 20 th century philosophy of science, the interplay of intelligibility, discovery and justification is what designates a scientific approach. Intelligibility, in that science renders phenomena meaningful. Discovery as the moment of insight that ultimately yields a hypothesis, which can be corroborated or falsified by proper experimental testing. In this essay, the problems of this model of science are addressed and three additional concepts are brought into discussion to characterize science: sublimity, beauty and elegance. The meaning and application of these terms in the history of science are illustrated by examples. Beauty and sublimity can also be experienced in the ideas of Steiner's spiritual science. The plea for the criteria of science suggested here is a plea for the scientific approach of anthroposophy as well.
The German Quarterly, 1992
The German Quarterly, 1989
Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 1987
I. Goethe in the History of Science.- Goethe's Relationship to the Theories of Development of... more I. Goethe in the History of Science.- Goethe's Relationship to the Theories of Development of His Time.- The Eternal Laws of Form: Morphotypes and the Conditions of Existence in Goethe's Biological Thought.- Goethe's Entoptische Farben and the Problem of Polarity.- Goethe and Helmholtz: Science and Sensation.- Goethe and Psychoanalysis.- Goethe's Color Studies in a New Perspective: Die Farbenlehre in English.- II. Expanding the Limits of Traditional Scientific Methodology and Ontology.- Goethe and Modern Science.- Goethe and the Concept of Metamorphosis.- Is Goethe's Theory of Color Science?.- Goethe Against Newton: Towards Saving the Phenomenon.- Theory of Science in the Light of Goethe's Science of Nature.- Facts as Theory: Aspects of Goethe's Philosophy of Science.- The Theory of Color as the Symbolism of Insight.- III. Contemporary Relevance: A Viable Alternative?.- Form and Cause in Goethe's Morphology.- Goethean Method in the Work of Jochen Bockemuhl.- Whiteness.- Goethe as a Forerunner of Alternative Science.- Self-Knowledge, Freedom and Irony: The Language of Nature in Goethe.- Postscript. Goethe's Science: An Alternative to Modern Science or within It - or No Alternative at All?.- Goethe and the Sciences: An Annotated Bibliography.- Index of Names.
Anthroposophic Press eBooks, 1985
Goethe Yearbook, 2021
In a footnote to his introduction, Rittersma conjectures that “it is probably only a matter of ti... more In a footnote to his introduction, Rittersma conjectures that “it is probably only a matter of time before Disney (similar to its Pochahontas film) brings this historical subject [Egmont] to the screen.” I think we can safely regard that as highly unlikely. In decades past, Egmont might have had a shot at the Classics Illustrated comic book series—after all, Faust made it. For my money, the most compelling instantiation—and repudiation—of the Egmont myth is to be found in Nico Rost’s Goethe in Dachau (2001). As allied troops and SS exchange fire in the night before liberation, Rost rereads Goethe’s Egmont. “[Egmont ist] im Grunde stets der Edelmann geblieben und [hat] die Freiheit, für die das Bürgertum kämpfte, niemals zu seiner Freiheit gemacht, sondern den ‘aufrührerischen’ Bürgern [zugerufen]: ‘Was an euch ist, Ruhe zu halten, Leute, das tut; ihr seid übel genug angeschrieben. . . .’ Ähnliche Ratschläge haben wir in den letzten Jahren ja oft genug gehört! So viele Egmonts haben so zu denen gesprochen, die für die Freiheit kämpften.” The timely untimeliness of Egmont in 1787 turned out to be fleeting. As a framework for unfolding the layers of semantic and narrative reorganization in the time between the beheading of Egmont and Goethe’s play, Rittersma’s mythogenesis has heuristic value. As for the mythical status of Egmont: I am not convinced.
PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature, 2009
Goethe Yearbook, 1988
Band deshalb weniger von Bedeutung. Es wäre jedoch interessant, die russische Sicht auf Goethe u... more Band deshalb weniger von Bedeutung. Es wäre jedoch interessant, die russische Sicht auf Goethe und sein Werk als Ausgangspunkt einer Infragestellung des etabUerten GoethebUdes—der engen literaturhistorischen Perspektive des späten neunzehnten Jahrhunderts entwachsen—heranzuziehen. Offenbar standen die russischen Literaten nicht im Bannkreis des deutschen Klassik-Mythos, der in Deutschland (und Amerika) erst in der Folge der rezeptionsästhetischen BemÃ1⁄4hungen von Hans Robert Jauß und Wolfgang Iser problematisiert wurde. Und damit komme ich zum letzten Punkt meiner Kritik: von Gronicka erwähnt nicht die Möglichkeit einer Revision des deutschen Goethebildes auf Grund der russischen Rezeption, im GegenteU, er scheint diese gegen eine, wie er impUziert, abgeschlossene, fest umrissene Goetheauffassung abzuwägen. Als gelungene Rezeptionsstudie sei dieser Mikhail Bakhtins Rabelais and His World entgegengehalten, in der Bakhtin ein grÃ1⁄4ndÃ1⁄4ches Verständnis, das heißt, eine Darlegung der historischen Bedeutung einer positiven oder negativen BeurteUung anstrebt. So auch Edward Said zu diesem Thema:
Goethe Yearbook, 1990
This impressive study, which builds upon the author's path-breaking dissertation of 1970,1 mi... more This impressive study, which builds upon the author's path-breaking dissertation of 1970,1 might initially seem out of place in Minnesota's series, which is so closely identified with cutting-edge literary theory. Jochen Schulte-Sasse anticipates this question in a perceptive foreword entitled "Do We Need a Revival of Transcendental Philosophy," as does the author himself in his final chapter on "Novalis in Contemporary Context." Although Schulte-Sasse plays down Molnár's critique, preferring to view the contest between "reconstructions of self-reflective reason," such as those of Molnár or Habermas, and "deconstructive imagination or fancy" as one between alternative modes of resisting instrumental reason, and thus as "a rift in the family" (xvi), both argue that Novalis has something of great value to contribute to current theoretical debates.
Goethe Yearbook, 2016
GOETHE'S LOVE OF MYSTERIES is no secret. Many of these arcana have already been explored in d... more GOETHE'S LOVE OF MYSTERIES is no secret. Many of these arcana have already been explored in depth: we have multiple fine studies on alchemy, Hermeticism, Freemasonry, and phrenology and even an outstanding book by our late colleague Gloria Flaherty on shamanism.1 Thus, it is surprising how little of the great mountain of Goethe scholarship is devoted to the ultimate Geheimnis (mystery), especially since it is precisely the place where Goethe's two highest ideals, "das Ewig-Weibliche" (the Eternal Feminine) and the Spinozist concept of "Gott-Natur" (God-Nature), intersect.2 That point is the ancient mystery religions.3 I cannot begin to do justice to such a vast and complex topic but will attempt here to make at least a token payment on this major debt.4The curious lack of critical attention is all the more surprising given how pervasive the whole theme of mystery religion was within the intellectual life of Goethe's contemporaries. Even scientists thought in such terms, as evidenced by the frontispiece to Alexander von Humboldt's Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen (Ideas for a Geography of Plants, 1807), which he dedicated to Goethe: in Bertel Thorvaldsen's image, Apollo unveils Artemis/ Isis, before whose feet Goethe's scientific treatise Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790) has been laid (fig. 1).5 When Humboldt wants to pay homage to both Goethe and Nature herself simultaneously, his reflex is to invoke Greek mystery religion.Hermetic DiscourseThis topic is difficult not just because it is huge but also because Goethe's understanding and treatment of it are so genuine: all communications about the Mysteries were to be veiled in enigmas, "sub aenigmate . . . proferre," as Pico della Mirandola expressed it.6 The Mysteries were simultaneously exoteric and esoteric; they all offered not only public displays that were widely known but also secret revelations to small groups of initiates that were so well guarded we can only speculate about their precise nature today. Pico admonished anyone who would discuss the Mysteries to be "editos et non editos"-simultaneously published and unpublished (Wind 11). The Renaissance Neoplatonist Calcagnini believed that it was possible "[b]y a judicious use of enigmatic words and images . . . to combine speech with silence: and that was the language of the mysteries" (Wind 12). The spirit proper to such discourse is captured by Edgar Wind's description of the enigmatic figure of Mercury-Hermes in Botticelli's Primavera: "He plays with the clouds rather as a Platonic hierophant, touching them but lightly because they are the beneficent veils through which the splendour of transcendent truth may reach the beholder without destroying him. To 'reveal the mysteries' is to move the veils while preserving their dimness, so that the truth may penetrate but not glare. The transcendent secret is kept hidden, yet made to transpire through the disguise" (Wind 123). Is this not the same profound insight that Goethe "hineingeheimnis-ed"7 into the end of "Anmutige Gegend" (Charming Landscape)8 in Faust?Goethe was a master of this veiled, Hermetic discourse. Take, for example, the extraordinary poem "Kore," with its cryptic subtitle "Nicht gedeutet!," which can (and surely does) mean both "I haven't interpreted this" and "Don't try to interpret this."9Ob Mutter? Tochter? Schwester? Enkelin?Von Helios gezeugt? Von wer geboren?Wohin gewandert? Wo versteckt? Verloren?Gefunden?-Ratsel ist's dem Kunstler-Sinn.[Or mother? daughter? sister? daughter's child?Begot by Helios? brought forth by whom?Whereunto wandered? Hidden where? What doom?Recovered?-Riddle to the artist's mind.]Recalling the many competing versions of this ur-myth, in which Kore is identified by turns as the granddaughter of the Great Mother, her daughter (and hence sister of Demeter), and even as an avatar of the Great Mother herself, the poem poses in quick succession ten questions as to the identity of this "ewiges Weib" (eternal woman), leaves them all unanswered, but then affirms that she represents the mystery of "ewig lebendige Natur" (eternally living nature) itself:Und ruhte sie verhullt in dustre Schleier,Vom Rauch umwirbelt Acherontischer Feuer,Die Gott-Natur enthullt sich zum Gewinn:Nach hochster Schonheit mus die Jungfrau streben,Sizilien verleiht ihr Gotterleben. …
German Studies Review, Feb 1, 1984
Goethe Yearbook, 2011
MY ESSAY PROPOSES TO MAKE a modest down payment on a much-needed narrative of Goethe’s philosophi... more MY ESSAY PROPOSES TO MAKE a modest down payment on a much-needed narrative of Goethe’s philosophical development that refutes some widely held views. The first kind of account claims that Goethe was philosophically naive, unschooled, and uninterested.1 A second characterization I would want to counter, which might be called the “condescending neo-Kantian” narrative, is one in which Goethe began as a naive realist, was taken in hand by Schiller, and finally converted grudgingly to a kind of poorly understood Kantianism. Both these accounts are very far from the truth. Goethe’s philosophy and relationship to other philosophers can be characterized generally as “intuitive”—in all the senses of that (intentionally) ambiguous term. As a thinker, Goethe was inspired rather than methodical. Moreover, he was “intuitive” in his ability to size up philosophical issues and individual philosophers quickly, getting to the heart of the matter on surprisingly short acquaintance. And Goethe’s philosophical work is focused specifically on the role of the faculty of intuition (Spinoza’s scientia intuitiva; Kant’s “produktive Einbildungskraft” and “intellectus archetypus”; Fichte’s “intellektuelle Anschauung”) in epistemology, ethics, and scientific discovery. As a philosopher of science, Goethe progresses through three phases, which one might call Realist, Idealist, and Romantic.2 The major influence in the first phase is Spinoza as interpreted by Herder; in the second, Fichte.3 In the third phase, Goethe develops an original epistemology that might be termed a kind of gesteigerter Spinozismus. The focus here will be on Goethe’s Metamorphose der Pflanzen as the culmination of Goethe’s first phase; consideration of the second and third phases must be deferred to another occasion. Both Goethe’s Metamorphose der Pflanzen and the influence of Spinoza on Goethe have been studied extensively, of course, but I will argue that Goethe’s study is suffused with Spinoza’s epistemology in specific and important ways that have not been sufficiently realized. Spinoza accompanied Goethe at every moment of his philosophical career. Even in the second phase, when his influence is not so immediately apparent, Spinoza continued to grow inside Goethe, eventually “blossoming” at the end of Goethe’s life. Eckermann’s characterization of Goethe’s evolving relationship to Spinoza is beautiful and precise:
Goethe's Willhelm Meister novels, widely held to be the most significant and influential in a... more Goethe's Willhelm Meister novels, widely held to be the most significant and influential in all of German literature, have traditionally been classed as Bildungsroman, or 'novels of formation'. In Goethe and the Myth of Bildungsroman, Frederick Amrine offers a unique reading of Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre and Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre, which posits the second novel as a sequel to the first. Deconstructing and jettisoning the notion of the Bildungsroman, the features of the novels which have historically proved problematic for critics, seeming to testify to the novels' disunity, become instead the articulation points of a subtle concord between thematic and formal elements. Reading the novels in light of the eminent criticism of Northrop Frye, this book productively shifts away from social commentary towards the archetypal and symbolic, showing Goethe not to be an exception within world literature; rather, that he participates deeply in its overarching structures.
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Papers by Frederick Amrine